A one-eyed 'cyclops' shark fetus discovered in July is the real thing, according to scientists.

The animal was discovered inside its mother, a dusky shark, who was caught in the Sea of Cortez earlier this year.

Discovery News report that when photos of the shark first surfaced in the Pisces Fleet Sportfishing blog, many people thought the images were too bizarre to depict anything legitimate. The cute little bug-eyed individual looks more like a happy cartoon character than a real shark, especially when its mouth is held open.

The 22-inch-long (56-centimeter-long) fetus has a single, functioning eye at the front of its head—the hallmark of a congenital condition called cyclopia, which occurs in several animal species, including humans, according to National Geographic.

Though the one-eyed shark was taken from his mother's womb, had she survived, it appears likely that the animal would not have survived long in the wild.

"This is extremely rare," Felipe Galvan Magana, a shark expert, told the Pisces Fleet Sportfishing blog in July. "As far as I know, less than 50 examples of an abnormality like this have been recorded."

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In this handout picture released by Awashima Marine Park, a 1.6 meter long Frill shark swims in a tank after being found by a fisherman at a bay in Numazu, on January 21, 2007 in Numazu, Japan. The frill shark, also known as a Frilled shark usually lives in waters of a depth of 600 meters and so it is very rare that this shark is found alive at sea-level. Its body shape and the number of gill are similar to fossils of sharks which lived 350,000,000 years ago. (Photo by Awashima Marine Park/Getty Images)